Where things I felt, heard, read or seen can, should or must be dropped.
Blog name origin.

Saturday, 11 March 2017

100 announcements (!) from Google Cloud Next '17

San Francisco — What a week! Google Cloud Next ‘17 has come to the end, but really, it’s just the beginning. We welcomed

10,000+ attendees including customers, partners, developers, IT leaders, engineers, press, analysts, cloud enthusiasts (and skeptics). Together we engaged in 3 days of keynotes, 200+ sessions, and 4 invitation-only summits. Hard to believe this was our first show as all of Google Cloud with GCP, G Suite, Chrome, Maps and Education. Thank you to all who were here with us in San Francisco this week, and we hope to see you next year.

If you’re a fan of video highlights, we’ve got you covered. Check out our Day 1 keynote (in less than 4 minutes) and Day 2 keynote (in under 5!).

One of the common refrains from customers and partners throughout the conference was “Wow, you’ve been busy. I can’t believe how many announcements you’ve had at Next!” So we decided to count all the announcements from across Google Cloud and in fact we had 100 (!) announcements this week.

For the list lovers amongst you, we’ve compiled a handy-dandy run-down of our announcements from the past few days:

Google Cloud Acquisitions

Google Cloud is excited to welcome two new acquisitions to the Google Cloud family this week, Kaggle and AppBridge.

1. Kaggle - Kaggle is one of the world's largest communities of data scientists and machine learning enthusiasts. Kaggle and Google Cloud will continue to support machine learning training and deployment services in addition to offering the community the ability to store and query large datasets.

Google Cloud Security

Google Cloud brings a suite of new security features to Google Cloud Platform and G Suite designed to help safeguard your company’s assets and prevent disruption to your business:

3. Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP) for Google Cloud Platform (Beta) - Identity-Aware Proxy lets you provide access to applications based on risk, rather than using a VPN. It provides secure application access from anywhere, restricts access by user, identity and group, deploys with integrated phishing resistant Security Key and is easier to setup than end-user VPN.

4. Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for Google Cloud Platform (Beta) - Data Loss Prevention API lets you scan data for 40+ sensitive data types, and is used as part of DLP in Gmail and Drive. You can find and redact sensitive data stored in GCP, invigorate old applications with new sensitive data sensing “smarts” and use predefined detectors as well as customize your own.

7. Vault for Google Drive (GA) - Google Vault is the eDiscovery and archiving solution for G Suite. Vault enables admins to easily manage their G Suite data lifecycle and search, preview and export the G Suite data in their domain. Vault for Drive enables full support for Google Drive content, including Team Drive files.

8. Google-designed security chip, Titan - Google uses Titan to establish hardware root of trust, allowing us to securely identify and authenticate legitimate access at the hardware level. Titan includes a hardware random number generator, performs cryptographic operations in the isolated memory, and has a dedicated secure processor (on-chip).

Google Cloud Platform - Data Analytics

New GCP data analytics products and services help organizations solve business problems with data, rather than spending time and resources building, integrating and managing the underlying infrastructure:

9. BigQuery Data Transfer Service (Private Beta) - BigQuery Data Transfer Service makes it easy for users to quickly get value from all their Google-managed advertising datasets. With just a few clicks, marketing analysts can schedule data imports from Google Adwords, DoubleClick Campaign Manager, DoubleClick for Publishers and YouTube Content and Channel Owner reports.

10. Cloud Dataprep (Private Beta) - Cloud Dataprep is a new managed data service, built in collaboration with Trifacta, that makes it faster and easier for BigQuery end-users to visually explore and prepare data for analysis without the need for dedicated data engineer resources.

11. New Commercial Datasets - Businesses often look for datasets (public or commercial) outside their organizational boundaries. Commercial datasets offered include financial market data from Xignite, residential real-estate valuations (historical and projected) from HouseCanary, predictions for when a house will go on sale from Remine, historical weather data from AccuWeather, and news archives from Dow Jones, all immediately ready for use in BigQuery (with more to come as new partners join the program).

12. Python for Google Cloud Dataflow in GA - Cloud Dataflow is a fully managed data processing service supporting both batch and stream execution of pipelines. Until recently, these benefits have been available solely to Java developers. Now there’s a Python SDK for Cloud Dataflow in GA.

24. Cloud Vision API (GA) - Cloud Vision API reaches GA and offers new capabilities for enterprises and partners to classify a more diverse set of images. The API can now recognize millions of entities from Google’s Knowledge Graph and offers enhanced OCR capabilities that can extract text from scans of text-heavy documents such as legal contracts or research papers or books.

26. Cloud Jobs API - A powerful aid to job search and discovery, Cloud Jobs API now has new features such as Commute Search, which will return relevant jobs based on desired commute time and preferred mode of transportation.

29. Committed Use Discounts - With Committed Use Discounts, customers can receive a discount of up to 57% off our list price, in exchange for a one or three year purchase commitment paid monthly, with no upfront costs.

30. Free trial extended to 12 months - We’ve extended our free trial from 60 days to 12 months, allowing you to use your $300 credit across all GCP services and APIs, at your own pace and schedule. Plus, we’re introduced new Always Free products -- non-expiring usage limits that you can use to test and develop applications at no cost. Visit the Google Cloud Platform Free Tier page for details.

31. Engineering Support - Our new Engineering Support offering is a role-based subscription model that allows us to match engineer to engineer, to meet you where your business is, no matter what stage of development you’re in. It has 3 tiers:

Development engineering support - ideal for developers or QA engineers that can manage with a response within four to eight business hours, priced at $100/user per month.

Production engineering support provides a one-hour response time for critical issues at $250/user per month.

On-call engineering support pages a Google engineer and delivers a 15-minute response time 24x7 for critical issues at $1,500/user per month.

32. http://ift.tt/2msqs6b site - Google Cloud Platform Community is a new site to learn, connect and share with other people like you, who are interested in GCP. You can follow along with tutorials or submit one yourself, find meetups in your area, and learn about community resources for GCP support, open source projects and more.

Google Cloud Platform - Developer Platforms & Tools

New GCP developer platforms and tools reinforce our commitment to openness and choice and giving you what you need to move fast and focus on great code.

33. Google AppEngine Flex (GA) - We announced a major expansion of our popular App Engine platform to new developer communities that emphasizes openness, developer choice, and application portability.

34. Cloud Functions (Beta) - Google Cloud Functions has launched into public beta. It is a serverless environment for creating event-driven applications and microservices, letting you build and connect cloud services with code.

35. Firebase integration with GCP (GA) - Firebase Storage is now Google Cloud Storage for Firebase and adds support for multiple buckets, support for linking to existing buckets, and integrates with Google Cloud Functions.

36. Cloud Container Builder - Cloud Container Builder is standalone tool that lets you build your Docker containers on GCP regardless of deployment environment. It’s a fast, reliable, and consistent way to package your software into containers as part of an automated workflow.

37. Community Tutorials (Beta) - With community tutorials, anyone can now submit or request a technical how-to for Google Cloud Platform.

Google Cloud Platform - Infrastructure

Secure, global and high-performance, we’ve built our cloud for the long haul. This week we announced a slew of new infrastructure updates.

38. New data center region: California - This new GCP region delivers lower latency for customers on the West Coast of the U.S. and adjacent geographic areas. Like other Google Cloud regions, it will feature a minimum of three zones, benefit from Google’s global, private fibre network, and offer a complement of GCP services.

39. New data center region: Montreal - This new GCP region delivers lower latency for customers in Canada and adjacent geographic areas. Like other Google Cloud regions, it will feature a minimum of three zones, benefit from Google’s global, private fibre network, and offer a complement of GCP services.

40. New data center region: Netherlands - This new GCP region delivers lower latency for customers in Western Europe and adjacent geographic areas. Like other Google Cloud regions, it will feature a minimum of three zones, benefit from Google’s global, private fibre network, and offer a complement of GCP services.

46. Drive File Stream (EAP) - Drive File Stream is a way to quickly stream files directly from the cloud to your computer With Drive File Steam, company data can be accessed directly from your laptop, even if you don’t have much space on your hard drive.

48. Quick Access in Team Drives (GA) - powered by Google’s machine intelligence, Quick Access helps to surface the right information for employees at the right time within Google Drive. Quick Access now works with Team Drives on iOS and Android devices, and is coming soon to the web.

49. Hangouts Meet (GA to existing customers) - Hangouts Meet is a new video meeting experience built on the Hangouts that can run 30-person video conferences without accounts, plugins or downloads. For G Suite Enterprise customers, each call comes with a dedicated dial-in phone number so that team members on the road can join meetings without wifi or data issues.

51. @meet - @meet is an intelligent bot built on top of the Hangouts platform that uses natural language processing and machine learning to automatically schedule meetings for your team with Hangouts Meet and Google Calendar.

52. Gmail Add-ons for G Suite (Developer Preview) - Gmail Add-ons provide a way to surface the functionality of your app or service directly in Gmail. With Add-ons, developers only build their integration once, and it runs natively in Gmail on web, Android and iOS.

54. Jamboard - Our whiteboard in the cloud goes GA in May! Jamboard merges the worlds of physical and digital creativity. It’s real time collaboration on a brilliant scale, whether your team is together in the conference room or spread all over the world.

Android & Chrome Devices

Building on the momentum from a growing number of businesses using Chrome digital signage and kiosks, we added new management tools and APIs in addition to introducing support for Android Kiosk apps on supported Chrome devices.

55. Android Kiosk Apps for Chrome - Android Kiosk for Chrome lets users manage and deploy Chrome digital signage and kiosks for both web and Android apps. And with Public Session Kiosks, IT admins can now add a number of Chrome packaged apps alongside hosted apps.

57. Chrome Device Management (CDM) APIs for Kiosks - These APIs offer programmatic access to various Kiosk policies. IT admins can schedule a device reboot through the new APIs and integrate that functionality directly in a third- party console.

58. Chrome Stability API - This new API allows Kiosk app developers to improve the reliability of the application and the system.

Google Cloud Customers

Attendees at Google Cloud Next ‘17 heard stories from many of our valued customers:

59. Colgate - Colgate-Palmolive partnered with Google Cloud and SAP to bring thousands of employees together through G Suite collaboration and productivity tools. The company deployed G Suite to 28,000 employees in less than six months.

62. HSBC - HSBC is one of the world's largest financial and banking institutions and making a large investment in transforming its global IT. The company is working closely with Google to deploy Cloud DataFlow, BigQuery and other data services to power critical proof of concept projects.

63. LUSH - LUSH migrated its global e-commerce site from AWS to GCP in less than six weeks, significantly improving the reliability and stability of its site. LUSH benefits from GCP’s ability to scale as transaction volume surges, which is critical for a retail business. In addition, Google's commitment to renewable energy sources aligns with LUSH's ethical principles.

64. Oden Technologies - Oden was part of Google Cloud’s startup program, and switched its entire platform to GCP from AWS. GCP offers Oden the ability to reliably scale while keeping costs low, perform under heavy loads and consistently delivers sophisticated features including machine learning and data analytics.

65. Planet - Planet migrated to GCP in February, looking to accelerate their workloads and leverage Google Cloud for several key advantages: price stability and predictability, custom instances, first-class Kubernetes support, and Machine Learning technology. Planet also announced the beta release of their Explorer platform.

66. Schlumberger - Schlumberger is making a critical investment in the cloud, turning to GCP to enable high-performance computing, remote visualization and development velocity. GCP is helping Schlumberger deliver innovative products and services to its customers by using HPC to scale data processing, workflow and advanced algorithms.

67. The Home Depot - The Home Depot collaborated with GCP’s Customer Reliability Engineering team to migrate HomeDepot.com to the cloud in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Moving to GCP has allowed the company to better manage huge traffic spikes at peak shopping times throughout the year.

68. Verizon - Verizon is deploying G Suite to more than 150,000 of its employees, allowing for collaboration and flexibility in the workplace while maintaining security and compliance standards. Verizon and Google Cloud have been working together for more than a year to bring simple and secure productivity solutions to Verizon’s workforce.

Google Cloud Partners

We brought together Google Cloud partners from our growing ecosystem across G Suite, GCP, Maps, Devices and Education. Our partnering philosophy is driven by a set of principles that emphasize openness, innovation, fairness, transparency and shared success in the cloud market. Here are some of our partners who were out in force at the show:

69. Accenture - Accenture announced that it has designed a mobility solution for Rentokil, a global pest control company, built in collaboration with Google as part of the partnership announced at Horizon in September.

70. Alooma - Alooma announced the integration of the Alooma service with Google Cloud SQL and BigQuery.

71. Authorized Training Partner Program - To help companies scale their training offerings more quickly, and to enable Google to add other training partners to the ecosystem, we are introducing a new track within our partner program to support their unique offerings and needs.

72. Check Point - Check Point® Software Technologies announced Check Point vSEC for Google Cloud Platform, delivering advanced security integrated with GCP as well as their joining of the Google Cloud Technology Partner Program.

74. Coursera - Coursera announced that it is collaborating with Google Cloud Platform to provide an extensive range of Google Cloud training course. To celebrate this announcement Coursera is offering all NEXT attendees a 100% discount for the GCP fundamentals class.

76. Egnyte - Egnyte announced an enhanced integration with Google Docs that will allow our joint customers to create, edit, and store Google Docs, Sheets and Slides files right from within the Egnyte Connect.

78. iCharts - iCharts announced additional support for several GCP databases, free pivot tables for current Google BigQuery users, and a new product dubbed “iCharts for SaaS.”

79. Intel - In addition to the progress with Skylake, Intel and Google Cloud launched several technology initiatives and market education efforts covering IoT, Kubernetes and TensorFlow, including optimizations, a developer program and tool kits.

80. Intuit - Intuit announced Gmail Add-Ons, which are designed to integrate custom workflows into Gmail based on the context of a given email.

81. Liftigniter - Liftigniter is a member of Google Cloud’s startup program and focused on machine learning personalization using predictive analytics to improve CTR on web and in-app.

82. Looker - Looker launched a suite of Looker Blocks, compatible with Google BigQuery Data Transfer Service, designed to give marketers the tools to enhance analysis of their critical data.

83. Low interest loans for partners - To help Premier Partners grow their teams, Google announced that capital investment are available to qualified partners in the form of low interest loans.

84. MicroStrategy - MicroStrategy announced an integration with Google Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL and Google Cloud SQL for MySQL.

88. Pivotal - GCP announced Pivotal as our first CRE technology partner. CRE technology partners will work hand-in-hand with Google to thoroughly review their solutions and implement changes to address identified risks to reliability.

89. ProsperWorks - ProsperWorks announced Gmail Add-Ons, which are designed to integrate custom workflows into Gmail based on the context of a given email.

91. Rackspace - Rackspace announced a strategic relationship with Google Cloud to become its first managed services support partner for GCP, with plans to collaborate on a new managed services offering for GCP customers set to launch later this year.

92. Rocket.Chat - Rocket.Chat, a member of Google Cloud’s startup program, is adding a number of new product integrations with GCP including Autotranslate via Translate API, integration with Vision API to screen for inappropriate content, integration to NLP API to perform sentiment analysis on public channels, integration with GSuite for authentication and a full move of back-end storage to Google Cloud Storage.

93. Salesforce - Salesforce announced Gmail Add-Ons, which are designed to integrate custom workflows into Gmail based on the context of a given email.

94. SAP - This strategic partnership includes certification of SAP HANA on GCP, new G Suite integrations and future collaboration on building machine learning features into intelligent applications like conversational apps that guide users through complex workflows and transactions.

95. Smyte - Smyte participated in the Google Cloud startup program and protects millions of actions a day on websites and mobile applications. Smyte recently moved from self-hosted Kubernetes to Google Container Engine (GKE).

98. Windows Partner Program- We’re working with top systems integrators in the Windows community to help GCP customers take full advantage of Windows and .NET apps and services on our platform.

99. Xplenty - Xplenty announced the addition of two new services from Google Cloud into their available integrations: Google Cloud Spanner and Google Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL.

100. Zoomdata - Zoomdata announced support for Google’s Cloud Spanner and PostgreSQL on GCP, as well as enhancements to the existing Zoomdata Smart Connector for Google BigQuery. With these new capabilities Zoomdata offers deeply integrated and optimized support for Google Cloud Platform’s Cloud Spanner, PostgreSQL, Google BigQuery, and Cloud DataProc services.

We’re thrilled to have so many new products and partners that can help all of our customers grow. And as our final announcement for Google Cloud Next ’17 — please save the date for Next 2018: June 4–6 in San Francisco.